There were contrasting reaction from both sides following England’s 21-16 victory over Wales at the Millennium Stadium.

Predictably the visitors were overjoyed at their opening Six Nations win while the Welsh camp were more sombre following their disappointing display in front of their home fans.

Here is a flavour of what they had to say.

Ben Youngs (England scrum-half)

“It’s always a great game between England and Wales. You can either crumble in that atmosphere, or thrive, and I thought the guys thrived,”

“I think it showed there are some real good guys who weren’t fazed. Anthony Watson had a great game, Jonathan Joseph as well, he backed up what he has been doing for Bath all season, which was great to see,

“It just shows the strength in depth that England have got at the moment.

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“To have someone like ‘JJ’ filling Manu Tuilagi’s boots at centre and do the job he did was fantastic. Not forgetting we were missing Courtney Lawes, Joe Launchbury and Geoff Parling, the two locks (Dave Attwood and George Kruis) were outstanding.

“The most pleasing thing is that we are building experience ahead of a World Cup, and that is probably the biggest picture, but we want obviously we want to do as well as we can in this tournament.

“Guys have put their hand up in the toughest environment coming here and gone ‘look, I can compete, I can play here and I can perform’, which is great for us.

“To come here and get the result we have been working hard for is really pleasing, so a great start. But we have got to back it up. We don’t want to get ahead of ourselves."

“I knew I wasn’t going to get there so I tried to hit and bounce back out and I bounced back into the post unbelievably, but only I could do that

“We’ve done a lot of work, there’s a lot of talent in this group.

“I think we felt if we stick in the game, keep our discipline and play in the right areas then we were going to get tries.”

James Haskell (Image: : Action Images / Andrew Boyers Livepic)

Anthony Watson (England wing)

“I guess it’s a pointer we have beaten our World Cup opponents Wales and Australia in our last two matches. That’s good but the World Cup is a different competition

“First we have to concentrate on the remainder of the Six Nations. We have got to back this up.

“It was brilliant, a great experience to play and win there – the atmosphere was fantastic. To go out there, sample it and win was great.

“We showed a lot of courage – they boys were never going to give up. To come back from going 10 points down is never easy. I guess we had to score next: we had to put points on the board and I managed to score.

“We put a lot of work into conquering the noise during the week so it wasn’t going to be too much of a factor. I wouldn’t say it was a massive problem. It did become an issue at some points of the game but it was never ridiculous.”

England's Anthony Watson scores a try after great work from Mike Brown

George Ford (England outside-half)

“I thought the boys were outstanding defensively, they worked so hard to get up off the ground and back in the line.

“There was a massive defensive effort from the forwards. Wales came out of the traps quickly and although we didn’t want to go 10 points behind the message behind the posts was we have to stick to the plan and we will get back into the game – and Anthony scored a good try.

“To go in at half-time 16-8 down wasn’t a bad result after being 10-0 down. International rugby is decided on small margins and there’s going to be a lot of kick and chase when you are up against a tough defence. When you get opportunities to attack you have to take one.

“It was a good start to the tournament, winning our first game at the Millennium Stadium on a Friday is pleasing but that’s all it was. We have a lot more work to do for next week.”

England's George Ford (Image: PA Wire)

Jake Ball (Wales second-row)

“We’ll look back and be very frustrated. There was a game there that should have been won, but we let it go in the second half

“People say we are renowned for starting slowly, but we started quickly. Maybe we took our foot off the pedal in the second half,” went on Ball.

“We were unable to play at the pace that we wanted to, and you can’t win games without the ball.

“I wouldn’t say England surprised us, not at all. The game was there to be won and we showed that in the first half, but let ourselves down in the second.

“I think there were a lot of positives to come from the first half. It’s just a case of keeping that intensity for 80 minutes.

“Maybe we let ourselves down at the breakdown a bit in the second half, so that’s an area where we need to keep the intensity as well.

“There were a couple of errors at the set-piece, but nothing we can’t sort out for next week.